“She’s Leaving Cheyenne” Track Liner Notes
Angus MacKenzie
In the 1800’s, many of the working cowboys were immigrants. I was thinking about the men who were not first-born sons, and therefore didn’t stand to inherit their father’s estates. This song is about one of those men who came to the west, looking for adventure and has found things aren’t altogether rosy.
Cowboy Moon
I heard this song on an obscure recording and liked it immediately. I had no idea who had written it, but when I started collecting songs for the recording, I remembered the title and started trying to find it again. I was pleased to find out that the author was Dave Stamey. After reaching out to him to talk it over, I found him to be a heckuva guy. We did a show together in Montana the summer of 2021, right before the recording was released, and had a great time.
Philadelphia Lawyer
I enlisted the members of a band that I used to play in – Kane’s River – to play on this Woody Guthrie song. The band hasn’t recorded together since 2009 and we sound pretty good! We always enjoyed playing music together, and still do when we get the chance.
She’s Leaving Cheyenne
I was actually trying to not write a cowboy song when I began to think about lyrics for the melody that was in my head, but when the title came to me, I dutifully followed where they took me.
The Lonesome Western Trail
My friend, Jim Schulz from Helena, MT was at my house recording a bunch of his songs for archival purposes. Months later I went back to the hard drive that holds Jim’s songs, looking for material and found this gem.
Big Country
Banjo genius Bela Fleck is not known for writing songs that fit in the western genre, but this tune sounds like the theme song to an old western movie. I imagine he thinks so too, because of the title he gave it.
Maggie Kane
My friend Mike Hurwitz from Alta, WY, sent me this song when he found out that I was collecting songs for this recording. I like it because it’s a modern cowboy story song. Ted Wells’ pedal steel really makes this song!
Belgian Jennie
I heard a reference to the sad, true tale of Belgian Jennie on a recording made by some friends of mine, so I started researching her. There’s a lot more to the story than Tim Stafford and I were able to squeeze in to 3:12.
When The Work’s All Done This Fall
I played this song at a retirement home years ago, and an elderly woman who lived there told me that she used to sing this song growing up with her brothers in a sod shack in eastern Montana. DJ O’Malley - a sure enough cowboy - wrote the lyrics to this song in the 1880’s.
Sarah Hogan
I wrote this song in 1997, and it’s been recorded over 14 times – two times by me. I felt it deserved a spot on this recording of western songs but thought that it needed to have a vastly different treatment if it was going to be included. My friend Randy Rieman agreed to recite it as a poem, so he came to my place one winter afternoon and laid it down. I tried to match his cadence when I added my guitar.
The Snake Pistol
Sometimes a song will surprise me when it takes a twist that I hadn’t expected, and this song is a classic example of that. I came up with the melody first while I was camping up in the mountains, and then the story began to take shape. Since the song takes place in the late 1800’s, I intentionally made sure that I did not use any contractions in the words.
Carry Me Back To The Lone Prairie
I’ve loved this song ever since I heard Eddy Arnold sing it, although he only sang one verse. When I started to consider it for the recording, I did some research on it and found Carson Robison and his Buckaroos doing it on YouTube with both verses. The “hi ho” at the end is a tip of the hat to Robison’s original version.